The first series became ITVX’s most-viewed comedy earlier this year, and will be broadcast on ITV1 in 2024. Based on Carr’s experience growing up in 1980s Northampton, the show follows the comedian as a child with his family, including dad Graham, a fourth division football manager. Alan has to navigate puberty and coming to terms with his sexuality in the unforgiving landscape of Thatcher-era Britain.
Little did we think, when Alan Partridge first appeared as a sports reporter on BBC Radio 4’s incisive news spoof On the Hour in 1991 – his voice inspired by the late, great John Motson – that he would become a comedy icon, a national treasure even.
It seems appropriate that someone as terminally uncool as Alan, a man who, after all, is in no doubt that Wings were a better band than the Beatles, should have emerged during John Major’s premiership. Steve Coogan inhabits the character to a degree that is so brilliant as to be almost uncanny.
Drag Race UK’s Blu Hydrangea challenges two aspiring stitchers to create outfits on a budget as tight as the timescale. They have 12 hours to complete their creations, inspired by legendary looks from fashion, film, TV and cosplay, before modelling them on a runway.
Steve Coogan stars in this sequel to the landmark 1999 drama, The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, which picks up the case in 2006.
Written by and starring Steve Coogan and Sarah Solemani, Chivalry will explore the hot topic of gender politics in the #MeToo era in the film and television industries.
Wanda Sykes (Blackish) stars as astute studio executive Jean Shrill, who arranges for indie filmmaker Bobby Sohrabi (Solemani) to take over as director of “A Little Death”, a problematic movie produced by Cameron O’Neill (Coogan).
Cameron is striving to keep his name in lights but the threat of cancel culture looms large.
Sharlene Whyte (Small Axe) and Hugh Quarshie (Breeders) star as Stephen Lawrence’s parents, Doreen and Neville.
Steve Coogan (Philomena) plays DCI Clive Driscoll, the detective who led the investigation into the murder of their son Stephen.
The sequel picks up the case in 2006, 13 years after Stephen’s death on the night of 22 April 1993 in a racially motivated attack at a bus stop in Well Hall Road, Eltham.
Whyte will play Doreen Lawrence alongside Hugh Quarshie who will reprise his role as Neville Lawrence, while Steve Coogan will lead the investigation into the murder of Stephen as DCI Clive Driscoll.
Alrick Riley will direct the series written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Joe Cottrell Boyce, while Paul Greengrass, who wrote and directed the original in 1999, will serve as an Executive Producer.
Riley said: “The case of Stephen Lawrence is a testament to the fortitude, persistence and determination of the Lawrence family.
He has topped an illustrious career in news, chat and daytime shows, not to mention his stint on North Norfolk Digital Radio, with the conquest of a new broadcasting bastion: the podcast.
What he once assumed was the domain of “pale, tech-obsessed social lepers who couldn’t get a platform on any meaningful broadcaster” has become his creative audio kingdom.
Speaking on Radio 2, Coogan announced that the second series will air “in the next 12 months.”
Produced by Coogan’s own indie company, Baby Cow, the series premiered in February last year, with the antics of the inept presenter spoofing the magazine format as co-host of This Time (see: The One Show).
Susannah Fielding also starred as co-host Jennie Gresham, while Tim Key and Felicity Montagu reprised their roles as sidekick Simon Denton and Partridge’s loyal yet neglected PA Lynn Benfield respectively.
The new six-part series follows Brydon and Coogan as their fictionalised characters road trip around Greece on the hunt for more foodie adventures.
The pair debate about tragedy, comedy, myth and history, as they sample traditional Greek cuisine while travelling from one beautiful spot to another, which includes Hydra, Athens, Assos and Plyos.
Directed by Michael Winterbottom and produced by Revolution Films, the new series follows on from The Trip to Spain, which saw Brydon and Coogan travel from Getaria to Malaga.
